Global Macro: A Top-Down View

Kyle Concannon, CFA, CAIA

Macro investing—which adopts a top-down view of the world to analyze broad trends and allocate risk across asset classes, geographies, and sectors—offers a liquid investment that aims to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns without relying solely on rising equity or bond markets.

What is Global Macro?

Global macro investors subscribe to a top-down view of the world instead of approaching research with a bottom-up lens. They analyze broad macroeconomic and geopolitical trends to construct a diversified investment strategy with risk allocated across geographies and exposures, including equities, fixed income, currencies, and commodities.

The goal: strong risk-adjusted returns without having to rely on rising equity and fixed income markets. Freed from adherence to traditional benchmarks, macro managers take risks only in those markets, currencies, or commodities they believe are adequately compensated.

By analyzing information from a top-down perspective, macro strategies offer a form of diversification that traditional investing strategies often struggle to provide.

While some global macro strategies may dynamically manage their equity beta profile (a measure of a strategy’s sensitivity to the market), most macro strategies have a long-term beta expectation ranging from 0.0 to 0.5—a portfolio with a beta greater than 1 is more volatile than the market and a portfolio with a beta less than 1 is less volatile than the market.

The macro universe can mostly be broken down into two approaches to allocating risk across geographies and asset classes: systematic and discretionary.

Two Approaches: Systematic and Discretionary

Systematic

Discretionary

Rely on quantitative or technical models that allocate capital in a structured fashion with little to no subjective discretion (other than what is built into the models themselves).

Focus on fundamental research and the application of proprietary quantitative and qualitative assessments of economic, thematic, and political trends to subjectively allocate risk.

A Global, Multi-Asset Approach

Macro strategies offer a form of diversification that traditional investing strategies often struggle to provide.

Bottom-up investing certainly has its merits, and many portfolios are well-diversified from a bottom-up view. But introducing a top-down, multi-asset strategy can provide many benefits to a portfolio.

Economic, thematic, and political trends are often not isolated to one country, region, or asset class. Their influence may span geographies and cut across many markets and currencies simultaneously.

For example, the rise and fall of commodity prices over the past 15 years has affected many emerging and developed economies with consequences visible across these economies' equity and fixed income markets and currencies.

A slowdown in Chinese growth has affected not only China and Greater Asia, but also China's trading partners and commodity markets.

A global macro manager that incorporates the impact of these macro influences across all asset classes, regions, and sectors greatly enhances the total diversification of a portfolio.

Flexibility

Macro strategies are benchmark-agnostic, which means they only own those markets and currencies that appear to be cheap and/or adequately compensated, and avoid (or short) those which appear to be expensive and/or not adequately compensated.

Consider how this differs from a traditional (benchmark-relative, long-only) strategy. If a manager of such a strategy believes Japanese equities are overpriced, the portfolio will own fewer Japanese equities than the benchmark. But the portfolio still owns Japanese equities. Not only does the portfolio have exposure to an unattractive market, but the amount of risk the manager is willing or able to take in other more attractive opportunities is commensurately reduced. In contrast, a macro manager will either not own Japanese equities or will establish short exposure to benefit from a current overvaluation and expected subsequent price depreciation relative to other more attractive markets.

Short exposures can also be used to isolate relative opportunities (positioned in opposition to a long position in another market such that the two—taken together—net to zero exposure) or to broadly reduce portfolio risk by decreasing beta, duration, or currency exposures.

Importantly, because true macro strategies are both multi-asset and multi-currency, macro managers can separate asset and currency decisions and are able to take risk exposures in opposite directions if so desired. Taking the former example a step further, a macro manager may believe that the Japanese yen is undervalued at the same time the Japanese equity market is overvalued. The manager would thus take a long position in the yen while simultaneously shorting the equity market. This offers a dual benefit should both the equity market and the currency revert toward their fundamental values.

The Ability to Invest in Uncorrelated Exposures

Another advantage of macro strategies is their utilization of exposures that have little to no correlation with traditional markets, such as currencies and commodities. The inclusion of one or both of these risk exposures increases the breadth and diversification of a portfolio, which then enables macro managers to seek opportunities or mitigate risks where traditional managers may not be able to.

The Use of Expanded Instruments

Global macro managers also have access to an expanded pallet of instruments from which to choose to implement their views. They may use exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and index-level derivatives such as futures, forwards, swaps, and options.

Sometimes investors incorrectly equate derivatives with higher levels of risk. Derivatives can be used to both increase or decrease the intended risks of a strategy, and often represent the most efficient means of doing so.

Advantages of these instruments can include increased liquidity, lower cost, tax efficiency, the ability to short, greater precision, and even the ability to customize. They can also provide exposures (or payoff profiles) that traditional instruments cannot. For instance, options contain asymmetric payoffs, which can provide downside protection that traditional instruments lack.

Attractive Liquidity Profile

Lastly, a large hurdle to the majority of alternative investments is the liquidity profile. For investments like private equity, infrastructure, and real estate, an investor's capital is often locked into the strategy for a long period of time, while other alternative strategies attempt to capture returns in assets that are inherently illiquid, such as distressed assets.

Global macro strategies, in contrast, typically have an attractive liquidity profile because the underlying markets and instruments used are all very liquid themselves. This can be a benefit for those investors who are seeking diversification without having to sacrifice liquidity.

Conclusion

Macro investors adopt a global, top-down view of the world in which they analyze broad macroeconomic and geopolitical trends to allocate risk across asset classes, geographies, and sectors in an unconstrained fashion. The outcome is a liquid strategy that aims to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns without necessarily relying on rising equity or bond markets. When included in a portfolio, macro strategies provide macro diversification that portfolios focused exclusively on bottom-up analysis lack, thereby improving portfolio performance through return enhancement or risk mitigation.

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As consideration for access to any social media page, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless William Blair and their employees, contractors, affiliates, officers and directors from and against any claims whatsoever and of any nature for damages, losses and causes of action, including but not limited to actions by third parties against you, William Blair or any of its Related Person, arising out of or in connection with any decisions that you make based on such Content, your use of any social media page, or your violation of our website policies. You agree to make William Blair, whole for any and all claims, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including attorneys’ fees) arising from your use of the Site or any violation of this the policies laid out in this Disclaimer, unless prohibited by law.

Miscellaneous Provisions

YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and any other social media sites are public sites. William Blair is in no way affiliated with them and has no responsibility for their operations and services or for related service sites. William Blair is not responsible for any social media platform’s terms of use or privacy or security policies, or any other third party sites that may be linked to by a social media platform. By using a social media platform, you accept at your own risk that the Internet and online communications medium may not perform as intended despite the efforts of William Blair, your Internet Service Provider, and you.

Privacy & Security

Terms of use
The following is a legal agreement between William Blair, ("we," "us," or "our") and "you," the user of William Blair.

By accessing, browsing and/or using the William Blair website, you acknowledge that you have read, understand and agree to be bound to these terms of use ("Terms") and to comply with all applicable laws and regulations. This agreement contains warranty disclaimer and other provision that limit our liability to you. Please read this agreement in its entirety. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use William Blair website.

Your use of the William Blair website
A valid log in ID and password are required for you to use or access portions of the William Blair website. In order to help protect the confidentiality and security of your information or data, you must use your password each time you access your account. You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and for any use or misuse of our site by anyone using your password. We are not responsible and shall not be liable for any disclosure, misuse, modification or loss of any of your information or data by anyone accessing your account using your password.

You acknowledge and understand that no form of protection can completely ensure that the William Blair website will be completely protected against unauthorized entry or behavior. We shall have no liability for any claim or damages arising out of any breach of network security or any disclosure, misuse, modification or loss of data or information as a result thereof.

You are solely responsible for your actions and communications undertaken or transmitted using the William Blair website. Neither we nor our affiliates exercise editorial control over your transmissions; however, we do reserve the right to review your uploads and transmissions in order to, among other things, ensure compliance with these Terms.

Your use of the William Blair website is subject to all applicable local, state, national and international laws and regulations, and you agree not to use the William Blair website for purposes that violate such laws and regulations. You agree to abide by our copyright policy as set forth in our Copyright & Disclaimers page. In addition, you agree that:

You will not interfere with another entity's use and enjoyment of the William Blair website;

You will not upload, download, transmit or otherwise distribute any message, data, information, text or other material ("Content") that is unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, harassing, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory or otherwise objectionable;

You will not upload, download, transmit, or otherwise distribute any viruses or other harmful, disruptive or destructive files;

You will not upload, download, transmit or otherwise distribute any content that would constitute or encourage a criminal offense, violate the rights of any party, or that would otherwise create liability or violate any local, state, national or international law;

You will not attempt to obtain unauthorized access to the William Blair website or portions of the site which are restricted from general access or outside your permitted areas of access;

You will not interfere with or disrupt networks, systems, and/or computers connected to the William Blair website, and you will comply with all regulations, policies, and procedures of such networks and systems; and

You will comply with all United States laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from the United States.

No Transfer of Property Rights
The products, technology and/or processes described and/or used on the William Blair website may be the subject of intellectual property rights reserved by William Blair or other third parties. Nothing contained herein shall be construed as conferring to you in any manner, whether by implication, estoppel or otherwise, any license, title, or ownership of or to any intellectual property right of William Blair or any third party.

Updates to the William Blair Website
We reserve the right to modify the William Blair website and the materials, features and services provided on the site at any time without prior notice to you.

Warranty Restriction; Limitation Of Liability
The materials, information and services provided on the William Blair website are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. There is no warranty against interference with your enjoyment of any materials, information or services (including, but not limited to, any data, text, images, sounds or computer programs (including collections and compilations of them) or against infringement.

Neither William Blair nor any of its principals, officers, employees or affiliates shall be liable for any direct, indirect, special, consequential, punitive, exemplary and/or incidental damages of any kind whatsoever (including, but not limited to, lost profits or attorneys' fees) in any way due to, resulting from or arising in connection with your access to, inability to access, or use of the site, or from your reliance on any information provided on the site, even if William Blair has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation applies to all causes of action in the aggregate including, but not limited to, breach of contract, breach of warranty, negligence, strict liability, misrepresentation and any other tort. In the event the foregoing limitation of liability set forth herein shall be for any reason held unenforceable or inapplicable, you agree that William Blair and its affiliates' aggregate Liability shall not exceed five hundred dollars ($500).

Neither William Blair nor its affiliates takes any responsibility or assumes any liability for any content uploaded or otherwise transmitted by you or any third party, or for any mistakes, defamation, slander, libel, omissions, falsehoods, obscenity, pornography, indecency, lewdness, harassment, threats, abuse or profanity you may encounter in using the William Blair website. You agree to hold harmless William Blair and its affiliates and parties with whom William Blair has contracted for purposes of hosting or maintaining the site from all claims based upon communications or materials made available by you on the site.

International Use
Neither William Blair nor its affiliates makes any representation that materials, features or services on the site are appropriate or available for use in locations outside the United States, and accessing them from territories where their contents are illegal is prohibited. Those who choose to access the site from other locations do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws.

Indemnification
Upon a request by William Blair, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless William Blair and its affiliates, and their employees, contractors, officers and directors, from all liabilities, claims and expenses, including attorney's fees that arise from your use or misuse of the William Blair website. William Blair reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which event you will cooperate with William Blair in asserting any available defenses.

Enforcement by William Blair
In the event William Blair determines, in its sole discretion, that you have violated these Terms, William Blair shall have the right to immediately terminate your access to the site, without prior notice to you, and/or pursue any other remedies available to it under applicable law.

Governing Law
This Agreement, and the respective rights and obligations of the parties hereto, shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Illinois (excluding any conflict of laws provisions of the State of Illinois that would refer to and apply the substantive laws of another jurisdiction). Any suit or proceeding regarding the William Blair website or any part of the site shall be brought only in Illinois. Each of the parties consent to the exclusive personal jurisdiction and venue of the court, state and federal, located in city of Chicago, Illinois.

Updates to Terms
William Blair shall have the right to revise these Terms at anytime by updating this posting. By using the William Blair website, you agree to be bound by any such revisions and should therefore periodically visit the site to determine the then-current Terms to which you are bound.

William Blair SICAV

William Blair makes no representations that this website or any contents contained on it are appropriate or available for use in any jurisdiction. This information is not intended to be published or made available to any person in any jurisdiction where doing so would result in contravention of any laws or regulations applicable to the user. The SICAV Fund is currently registered for marketing in: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Therefore the SICAV Fund is either not registered to be marketed in your jurisdiction or may only be marketed or offered to professional investors in your jurisdiction. This website has been produced for information purposes only and is not to be construed as investment advice or a solicitation or an offer to purchase or sell investments or related financial instruments. Access to this website shall not be considered as marketing communication or as the marketing of the shares of the SICAV Fund if access to such information and documentation through this website would be unlawful in your jurisdiction.